Emerging Markets & Innovation: Additional thanks to Sean for linking to a great Economist article on innovation in emerging markets. Some really interesting examples of how innovation in emerging markets take shape. Consumer research is often necessary, but hard to compile in normal ways (hence the interesting things that companies like Unilever are doing in China). At the same time, even when you know what a customer wants, how do you actually distribute it in an emerging market that may have different forms of distribution than the ones your company typically uses? And how do you reach consumers- especially poor ones? Companies must have a definable strategy in place. Awesome article.

Before Sean sent the article, I had actually just been talking about this with some other students today- Tara and Gaurav (Tara has an awesome cooking blog…). They were teaching us to cook a few “beginner” Indian dishes (toor dal, okra and bengan bartha…mmmm) and we talked about the changes that American companies who were successful in India had made. For example, McDonald’s only serves chicken in India, not beef. And Pizza Hut “Indianized” their pizza, putting Indian spices and traditional chicken on top, rather than sticking with American flavors! Dominoes, on the other hand, did not, and are faring much worse.

All for now. More later.

Advertisements

Why the Name?

“Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.” ~ Nolan Bushnell